Madagascar's tree-top science

This article was taken from the July issue of Wired magazine. Be the first to read Wired's articles in print before they're posted online, and get your hands on loads of additional content by subscribing online

If you want to study the rainforest, there is no better place to be than on top of it -- literally. This pretzel-shaped structure on top of the Masoala National Park forest in Madagascar is called a canopy raft. Biologists use it to access the rainforest canopy, the upper layer of the forest.

These inflatable surfaces are lowered by a blimp and placed right on top of the trees, providing scientists with a working surface of 400 square metres of mesh strung between PVC hoops. "We just used to have ropes and climbing gear," says canopy scientist Meg Lowman of the New College of Florida. "Now, a canopy raft mission costs about $1 million, involving about 50 people at the base camp and eight on the raft," she says. "They last for days and everybody takes turns on one."

Getting direct access to the canopy layer is important for biologists since up to 90 per cent of all animal species and about half the plant species in the rainforest live there. "We are getting unprecedented access to an undiscovered frontier," says Lowman. "I study plant-eating insects that live in the canopy, which are most active at night when most predators are asleep, so my work involves many sleep-overs in the canopy raft."

But scientists aren’t just clocking up species. This rainforest layer also plays a crucial part in regulating the climate, by supplying 28 percent of our oxygen. "We are still trying to get a handle on understanding the biosequestration of CO2 and the gas exchange between the canopy and the atmosphere," she says. "That is the cutting edge of canopy science."